In the investment world, separately managed accounts are exactly what the name implies - they are accounts that are managed separately for each investor, as opposed to mutual funds, which are managed for hundreds or thousands of investors as a group.

The key difference: separately managed accounts are, in essence, individually owned portfolios run by a professional manager for the benefit of the individual, in exchange for fees paid by that individual. To find out about common minimum investments, the specifics of tax benefits versus a mutual fund, and some of the drawbacks, continue on to Separately Managed Accounts Offer Flexibility - at a Price.

The yield curve, one of the key statistics that economists and investors use to try to divine the future course of the economy, is simply a measure of the difference between the interest rates on short-term loans (or bonds) and those on long-term loans (or bonds).

Under normal economic conditions, interest rates on short-term loans are lower than on long-term loans. This is because there's less risk that a company such as, say, General Motors will default on its debts in the next 30 days than there is that it will go belly-up in the next 30 years. There is also less risk that inflation will eat into the value of money repaid on a loan in three months than on a loan that is repaid three decades from now. Continue reading...